The present exhibition “On the Camera Obscura, The obsession with capturing image” is based on her research on the camera obscura carried out at the MPIWG as a visiting scholar during the years 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Her doctoral thesis, “The history of the camera obscura, as prehistory of photography” (2014), is a monograph about the camera obscura which provides an overview of its evolution in the Western world. To provide a global overview she created a timeline, and as her work is also based on the selection and compilation of documentary sources, she has also created a database with illustrations related to the camera obscura.

To explore the possibilities of the camera obscura and understand its uses, she also worked with the “historical camera” at the MPIWG.

The idea of this exhibition is to show the whole process of the work. On the one side, the documentary section consists of the timeline expanded in space as a visual cartography, through a selection of the illustrations related to the camera obscura. It shows the interrelationships between key milestones and the brief data summarizing her story. In connection with this, the library displays a selection of the rare MPIWG books relating to the camera obscura. On the other side, Montserrat de Pablo presents photographs and drawings made with the Planck camera obscura, interior and exterior views, a set of variations on a theme, along with photographic portraits of the MPIWG staff as a “group portrait.”

A related exhibit: “Montserrat de Pablo, Cámara Oscura, Work in Progress” has being already shown at Cuenca (January, 2015) and Ciudad Real (May, 2015) University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain.